CFINR Executive Director Makes Case for Objectivity at National Journalism Trust Conference
OXFORD, Miss. — Rufus Friday, executive director of the Center for Integrity in News Reporting, delivered a 45-minute address April 17 at the University of Mississippi calling on journalists, news organizations and journalism students to publicly commit to core journalistic values as the foundation for rebuilding public trust in the American press.
Friday spoke before an audience of approximately 100 journalists, academics, civic leaders and students at the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation's national symposium, "How the News Media Can Regain Public Trust," held on the Oxford campus.
Walter E. Hussman Jr., the retired publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and WEHCO Media, and founder of CFINR, attended the event in person and participated in the question-and-answer session that followed Friday's 45-minute address.
The symposium brought together a range of national voices on the press trust crisis, including Brian Stelter, CNN's chief media analyst; Kathy Kiely, a veteran journalist and press freedom fellow; Vivian Walker, a practitioner in residence at Georgetown University; former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger; former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III; and Ellen McCarthy, chairwoman and CEO of the Truth in Media Cooperative. The event was hosted by the Jordan Center and sponsored in part by CFINR.
Friday’s address anchored its argument in polling data, citing Gallup's September 2025 survey showing that only 28 percent of Americans now express a great deal or fair amount of trust in the news media, down from 72 percent in 1976. He noted that for the first time since the annual poll began, complete distrust of the media, at 36 percent, outweighs any level of trust.
"For the first time in the recorded history of this poll, complete distrust outweighs any trust," Friday said. "And it's worse here than anywhere else."
He pointed to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism's survey of 92,000 people across 46 countries, which ranked the United States last in media trust at 29 percent, and to a June 2025 Pew Research Center survey showing that trust in major national outlets breaks almost perfectly along partisan lines, with 58 percent of Democrats trusting CNN and 58 percent of Republicans distrusting it, and 56 percent of Republicans trusting Fox News while 64 percent of Democrats distrust it.
"We have a mirror problem," Friday said. "Both sides see exactly the bias they expect to see, in exactly the outlets they already distrust."
Friday identified four causes for the decline: the nature of bias perception and the algorithmic amplification of confirming content; the rise of 24-hour cable news and social media; shifts in journalism education and hiring practices; and what he described as a debate inside journalism education itself over the value of objectivity.
He addressed that last point at length, acknowledging that some frustrations driving that debate were legitimate. False balance, inadequate coverage of underrepresented communities and the use of objectivity as a shield against difficult reporting were real failures, he said. But he argued those failures were reasons to live up to the standard, not abandon it.
"The profession doesn't need to abandon the standard," Friday said. "It needs to live up to it."
Friday devoted a portion of his remarks to the origin of CFINR and to Hussman, who was in the audience. He recounted how Hussman, watching a CNN promotional spot in 2017, heard a prominent anchor say she did not believe in the "false equivalency" of giving both sides of a story. Hussman responded by drafting a statement of journalistic values and running it consistently across all WEHCO Media newspapers.
The largest share of the address was devoted to what Friday called CFINR's single most important programmatic priority: persuading news organizations to adopt and publicly display a statement of core journalistic values. He cited the Bangor Daily News as one example of a news organization that has done so, and described a mural unveiled at the Stars and Stripes news facility at Camp Humphreys in South Korea, the largest U.S. military installation overseas, bearing five words: Credibility. Impartiality. Truth-telling. Balance. Accountability.
Friday serves as chair of the Stars and Stripes National Publisher Advisory Board.
On CFINR's national awards program, Friday reported that entries to the organization's annual journalism competition have grown from 102 in the program's first year to 127 the following year to 397 in 2025, a 213 percent increase in a single year. The national prizes carry a cash award of $25,000 per category, more than the Pulitzer Prize.
CFINR has also expanded its state-level awards program. A three-year, $210,000 grant from the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation funds $5,000 prizes across 14 southeastern states. A separate Stanton Foundation gift of $90,000 covers six New England states, and a recent additional gift adds Ohio, bringing the total to 21 states and $315,000 in grant funding.
CFINR also works with 23 journalism school partners through an initiative which brings award-winning journalists into classrooms at schools including Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, USC's Annenberg School, and the University of Missouri, with more college and university partners constantly being added.
Friday closed by speaking directly to the journalism students in the room, telling them the public had not given up on good journalism — only on what it perceived journalism had become.
"Never compromise," he said. "Cover your community through objectivity and impartiality. It takes time to rebuild trust. One headline at a time. One correction at a time, done quickly and with humility. One fair story at a time."
The symposium also featured a keynote luncheon address and fireside chat with Kinzinger; a session on investigative sports journalism with journalist Graeme Joffe; a panel on community versus audience in local journalism featuring Andre Natta of the Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism, Louisiana Illuminator staff writer Wes Muller and Sarah Gamard of the Center for Community News; and a closing session on the international perspective with Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA.
The event concluded with the introduction of the 2026 Oxford Declaration on Journalistic Integrity and Public Trust, a framework developed collaboratively by symposium participants addressing transparency, algorithmic accountability, independence, attribution standards and the separation of news from opinion and commentary.
David A. Sommers is the consulting communications director for the Center for Integrity in News Reporting.
A video clip of CFINR Founder Walter E. Hussman Jr. and Executive Director Rufus Friday answering audience questions, following a presentation
at the University of Mississippi's Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation's national symposium, "How the News Media Can Regain Public Trust."
